That’s a Zip gun
There was an extraordinary incident in Akron, Ohio, this past week involving 20-year-old Rydell Brooks, a sophomore guard on the UA Zips basketball team. According to reports, cops pulled over a van on Bellows Street in Akron in what we might euphemistically describe as your standard “routine traffic stop.”

Side note: in many states with large urban black populations, there are laws against “excessively tinted windows,” and police use this dubious legal maneuver as a probable-cause lever to stop and search cars. In this case, the van in question had such windows, and cops approached it. But they reportedly hadn’t made it even close to the vehicle before shots rang out. Two men inside the van fired at police and then took off on foot, only to be eventually chased down. Brooks and one Edward Davis, also 20, were apprehended.

The real intrigue began when police searched the ’97 Dodge Caravan and found five guns and two ski masks. Nobody is saying what they think the endgame was supposed to be that night, but one suspects it wasn’t an improv-comedy performance. Brooks is now being held on a $1 million bond — repeat: $1 million bond — and the charges so far are attempted murder, felonious assault, carrying a concealed weapon, driving with a suspended license, and driving with the aforementioned excessively tinted windows. One imagines a possession-of-burglary-tools charge might also be in the works, as well as some other assorted prosecutorial yokes for the eventual trial.

I’ve been unable to find an instance of another athlete getting arrested with a gun and a ski mask in his car. About the closest thing was the Maurice Clarett incident, in which the former star Ohio State running back was arrested with four guns and a hatchet not far from the home of a witness who had identified him as the man who stole a cell phone at gunpoint in an alley. (Clarett was also in possession of a CD containing children’s songs that had been distributed to prisoners of an Ohio penitentiary.) That incident, you may recall, led to revelations about Clarett’s relationship with an Israeli ex-con/mobster named Hai Waknine — revelations that helped observers make sense out of some of Clarett’s more mystifying past statements, including his head-scratching exit from a meeting with East-West Shrine Game officials in 2004 (“I’ve got to go. It’s Shabbos.”).

As for Brooks . . . hardcore hoops fans may remember him as the guard who propelled little-known Niagara U. to the 2007 NCAA tournament. He sat out this year and was due to begin playing for the Zips next season. Unlikely, to say the least. For shooting at cops, he heads toward the top of the board with 88 points. Further details on the way . . .

G-Money
More bad news from Penn State. First, the Nittany Lions recently had to boot a reserve wideout named Chris Bell for off-field issues; Bell ended up getting arrested a short time later for making terrorist threats. The team also has had to deal with the arrest of linebacker Tyrell Sales, who got involved in a scuffle that led to a disorderly conduct arrest in March. (Sales was also one of six players who got arrested in April 2007 for a brawl that is somewhat legendary in collegiate-sports circles for its reportedly high level of craziness; recently drafted cornerback Justin King was another. Charges against both were later dropped.) This in addition to the already much-publicized murder conviction of ex–Nittany Lion linebacker LaVon Chisley this past fall.

LET GO, METS | August 18, 2010 As difficult as this summer has been for those of us counted among the Red Sox faithful, let's all agree: it would be a hell of a lot worse to be a New York Mets fan right now.